


Sacred Space

by colberts



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Gen, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 22:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1242373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colberts/pseuds/colberts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone assumes that Ray starts what culminates into all-out war on the home front. It doesn’t help that he protests every time someone in the knitting circle brings it up. Brad is the Iceman, a pillar of maturity and competency, so everyone refuses to believe that he would ever start a prank war in his own home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sacred Space

Everyone assumes that Ray starts what culminates into all-out war on the home front. It doesn’t help that he protests every time someone in the knitting circle brings it up. Brad is the Iceman, a pillar of maturity and competency, so everyone refuses to believe that he would ever start a prank war in his own home.

They’ve never lived with Ray.

And they obviously don't know Brad as well as they think.

\---

Brad comes home from the beach one day and finds things out of place. His door’s unlocked, which isn’t a mistake he’s ever made, and the mat inside his door has one corner flipped up. He might’ve been able to excuse those things, but as he moves through to the kitchen, he finds a mug on the counter with a ring of dried coffee crusted around its base and a few of his cupboard doors are left open. Brad blinks at them for a long moment before letting loose the world’s largest sigh.

“Person,” he calls. “Where are you?” He turns towards the living room, mutters to himself, “I need to know if I'm going to kill you here or if I have to do some tracking first.”

There’s a muffled _whump_ as an arm appears over the top of Brad’s couch. “Here.”

When he makes his way over to Ray, Brad is met with the most pathetic sight he’s ever seen. The arm not flopped over the back of Brad’s couch is flopped over Ray’s eyes. He looks like he hasn’t showered in a few days, and his t-shirt is speckled with _who knows what_ along with sweat stains under the arms.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Dying.”

“Not on my couch,” Brad tells him shortly, grabbing a belt loop and rolling him onto the floor. Ray throws his arms out to catch himself, revealing a black eye.

"You have no idea what I've been through in the last 24 hours," Ray groans, crawling back onto the couch. Brad just watches, unimpressed, and waits for him to continue. "See, I may have forgotten to pay my rent." He hesitates like he's considering how much to share. "For the last couple months."

"Oh, no. No, I see where this is going and _no_." Brad takes a step back, shaking his head. His job in the Iraq had been to ride shotgun to Ray's insanity for extended periods of time and he has no desire to make it a full-time position.

"I was out with some guys - Walt was there for the whole thing so he can back me up - and this asshole got up in my face because he didn't like what I put on the jukebox. What a fucking pussy! Who gets their panties in a bunch about a couple harmless ballads?"

"Jesus. It's not happening, Person."

"So I may have gotten forcibly removed from the premises, not that I threw the first fucking punch! And since it was like noon when I left for the bar, the asshole landlord had plenty of time to move all of my shit into the fucking lobby!"

"You do realize that they send you plenty of notices before they're allowed to dump you out on your ass, right?" Brad asks, exasperated.

"Fucker's never followed through before!" Ray says, his voice pitched high in indignation.

Brad pinches the bridge of his nose.

"So why aren't you gracing Hasser with your presence since he witnessed this predictable course of events?"

Ray glares at him. "Fuck you. Hasser's busy spending every waking moment balls deep in his bottle-blonde girlfriend. No danger of that here, unless you've graduated to physically showing your affection to that two-wheeled deathmobile in the garage."

Brad sighs.

“Garza?”

“At his mommy and daddy’s.”

“Lilley?”

“Staying on base.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Too much testosterone, too much paperwork.”

“What about Rudy?”

“There’s only so much green tea a man can drink before he starts singing show tunes and taking it up the ass.”

Brad heaves another sigh. “LT?”

“Oh my god, have you met him? He’d suffocate me with his idealism and then guilt trip me for dying on his watch. Come on, homes, it’ll only be for a little while, and you have a guest room.”

“Guests are usually _invited_ ,” Brad says slowly. Ray rolls his eyes.

“Don’t even pretend you didn’t miss me!”

Brad gives in, for the moment, and heads upstairs to change. By the time he finds his keys and wallet, Ray’s flipping through tv channels with his hand in a bag of cheese curls that are definitely not Brad’s.

“I’m going shopping. I’ll feed you for a couple of nights, but you better start looking for a place to crash that’s at least five miles away from here.” When he pulls the garage door open, he’s greeted by a small mountain of boxes.

“Aye aye, Sergeant,” Ray says without looking away from the tv. Brad takes several deep breaths to stop himself from marching across the room and snapping Ray’s neck.

“On second thought,” he says, closing the door carefully, “I’m going for a ride, and you had better pray that your shit doesn't delay my exit. When I get back, there had better be a six pack waiting for me in that fridge along with half a butchered cow on the grill or the least of your problems will be where you lay your Whiskey Tango head tonight.”

Brad’s bike has magical curative powers.

\---

Of all the annoying things Ray does, and _there are plenty_ , the worst one happens at 2 am on the dot every single fucking night. Ray stumbles his way into the master bathroom - which is connected to Brad’s room - pisses with the lights off, and then trips his way back down the hall. The first few times, it’s the flush that scares Brad awake; he hasn’t lived with anyone in years and without the light on, it takes him several panicky seconds to figure out it had been Ray and not some idiot burglar.

He wishes it was a burglar.

Brad hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep since Ray showed up. When Brad brings it up over coffee one morning, Ray barely remembers getting up, but promises to cut back on liquids at night and try to turn a light on. With every recurrence, Brad gets exponentially more annoyed. By the end of the week, he’s ready to lock Ray in his room and take his chances on whatever accident results.

Brad is forced to take drastic action.

He owes Ray for a handful of bullshit pranks he’d pulled in Iraq, anyway, and Brad’s always wanted to try it, but had known better than to do it to his sisters or his father. In the end, Brad can’t believe how well it goes for such an over-hyped prank.

Like clockwork, Ray makes his way into the dark bathroom just like all the nights before. This time, however, Brad leaves the door connected to his room open, which goes unnoticed by Ray. Brad’s position on his bed affords him with a fantastic view of the toilet and subsequently, Ray’s lily-white ass. It’s a great addition to all the shit Brad will be giving Ray for the rest of his life.

Brad nearly bites off his forefinger at the knuckle in an attempt to stifle his laughter while he waits for Ray to react. It takes Ray much longer than Brad thought it would to notice that something isn’t right. Whether it’s the unusual noise his piss makes as it ricochets off the plastic wrap or the unexpected splash back, he does eventually notice, but instead of stopping and backing away, Ray turns to his left to get away from the spray he’s causing while he continues to piss. Brad can hear it hitting the tiles of his bathroom floor and can’t help but think it’s worth a ruined rug.

“What the fuck?” Ray mumbles. Brad can hear wet feet shuffling over tile; it occurs to him that he can have Ray shampoo his carpets in the wake of all the guilt tripping, and he doubles over again with glee. Ray stands in the minimal light, head tilted down towards the floor and dick in hand with his pants around his ankles, and Brad’s never seen anything more hilarious in his life.

Ray reaches out to flush the toilet like usual and bends to pull his pants up. There’s another beat of confused stillness before Ray makes his way out of the bathroom.

When Brad turns the light on to check, the mess doesn't disappoint. The plastic wrap did its job; Brad’s diligence in tightly securing it ensured that every drop of Ray’s piss ended up everywhere except in the bowl. There’s a substantial puddle on the floor, along with splash patterns all over the back of the toilet. There are three perfectly outlined footprints on the rug, too. It all smells delightful.

After disposing of the evidence, Brad waits ten minutes, just to be safe, before creeping his way to Ray’s room. He hears the snoring before he even reaches the door.

He’s ready for the theatrics.

“Ray!” Brad yells down the hall. He hears a thump and a bang as Ray’s door crashes into the wall. Ray stops in the bathroom doorway, blinking against the brightness.

“Wuh?”

It takes everything Brad has not to give in to the hilarity of everything and ruin it. Ray’s pants and shirt are both speckled with wet spots and his hair is spiked on one side where he slept on it. He manages to look both asleep and alarmed at once, with his bloodshot eyes and his slack mouth and a line of dried drool across one side of his face.

“What the fuck happened in here?” Brad gestures to the floor after dragging Ray down the hall by his forearm. Ray blinks at the puddle for a long moment before looking back up at Brad.

“I don’t know?”

“So you don’t remember taking a piss in the dark? There’s a reason we use the fucking lights, Person!”

Watching it dawn on Ray is a moment Brad will cherish for the rest of his life.

“I,” Ray says, gripping the hem of his shirt and pulling it away from his body so he can inspect the dampness. He sniffs and wrinkles his nose. “What the fuck?”

Brad grabs the mop from where he’d left it in the corner and shoves it into Ray’s hand. “You can start with this. Every inch of this bathroom better be spotless when you’re finished. Tomorrow we can discuss scrubbing the hallway carpet.”

He pauses for a moment to take in the whole picture: Ray loosely holding the mop, face a mixture of confusion and horror, his clothing covered in the ricochet pattern of his own urine, and Brad’s bathroom half covered in it. Brad marches into his room, slamming the connecting doorway on his way out, and collapses onto his bed heaving with silent laughter.

He sleeps better than he has in years that night.

In the morning, Brad oversees the cleaning of his hallway carpet and the washing of the sheets with barely suppressed delight. After Ray wheels the rented steam cleaner into the garage and struggles to get it into the back of Brad’s Jeep, Brad spills the beans.

“Now, what have we learned today, Person?” Brad stands with his hands on his hips as Ray leans against the bumper of the car and wipes away the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Go to the bathroom before bed,” Ray recites. “ And always turn the fucking light on. I can’t believe this, seriously. I’ve never even wet the fucking bed before.” He shakes his head, still embarrassed.

“Always turn the fucking light on, because…?”

Ray’s eyebrows draw together. “Because I might miss the fucking toilet bowl?”

“Because without the light,” Brad says, letting the smirk he’s been holding in spread across his face, “you can’t see the plastic wrap.”

It takes several seconds for Ray to catch on. The moment he does, his eyes widen and his nose wrinkles up angrily.

“You twisted fuck!”

\---

Later, Brad would blame his lack of situational awareness on the comforts of home. Marines don’t forget to look over their shoulder when they are in the desert surrounded by enemies with binoculars trying to blow them to pieces. But with a couch and a bed and a fully-functional toilet, it’s a little harder to stay focused enough to see the men in the trees.

A month straight in a humvee with Ray should’ve been all the warning Brad needed. He has nobody to blame but himself.

The first morning, Brad's coffee tastes like sewage and he chalks it up to neglect. He hadn’t washed out his stainless steel pot in a while, and who knew what might have been growing on the bottom of it. The second morning, post-scrubbing, Brad wonders if it’s the milk. The third morning, he chips his favorite mug after he dumps it into the sink in frustration; that evening he spends an hour taking his coffee maker apart and cleaning every inch of it while Ray talks about diseases that can mess with taste buds. The fourth morning he dumps out all his sugar and makes sure there’s nothing living in it. The fifth morning it’s the coffee grounds. By the time Saturday rolls around, Brad runs seven miles to Starbucks and hazards the crowd of civilians because if he goes another morning without caffeine, his head will probably roll off.

He meets Poke at the bar that evening and he's working up a good rant before Poke cuts him off.

“Hold up, shitty coffee? You sure it’s _sugar_ you’re adding to it?”

“Yes, I’m fucking sure. I bought new everything. Plus I fucking taste it now before I drink it,” Brad says into his glass. It’s what his life’s come to - taste tests for everything while the paranoia eats away at him.

“Yeah, but it sounds like what happens when you add salt to coffee. Tastes like shit. Lilley pulled that one on me once. Kept adding the _sugar_  for me like he was doing me some big favor. Fucker.”

The realization hits Brad like a bus.

“Person.”

Ray’s on the couch watching tv when Brad gets back in the early morning hours. He turns around to say hello, but stops at the sight of Brad with a crazed look on his face and the coffee pot hugged to his chest. Brad should know better than to drink alone with Poke.

“I’d ask if you had a good time, but I think I’ve got my answer,” Ray says, eyebrows threatening to disappear into his hairline. Brad glowers at him and sets the pot down with a clunk on the island.

"I had a good time, alright." Brad didn't meant to slur the words.

"Well, I wouldn't risk that, if I were you. The new maker won't be here until next week. There's orange juice in the back of the fridge."

“You are dead,” Brad says it quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. He must pass for inebriated, because Ray has already turned his attention back to the tv and ignores the way Brad’s trying to burn a hole in his head with his glare.

“What’s that?” Ray asks, crunching through whatever heartattack in a bag he’s hauled into Brad’s house.

“I’m going to bed,” Brad answers, raising his voice. He leaves the coffee pot where it is. It’s only fair to give a little warning to the prey before the predator pounces.

\---

Another of Ray’s annoying habits is the way he puts on his ratty sneakers. Brad has watched him do it every time Ray heads out of the house and still has trouble believing it's real.

The sneakers might have been red when they were purchased - probably more than a decade ago - and they smelled like the accumulated ball sweat of Bravo Company after three weeks in MOPP suits. Ray’d wasted no time telling Brad where those shoes had traveled and all manner of bodily fluids they’d encountered, to the point where Brad didn’t want the things on his property let alone in his house. The shoes were so worn and soft that Ray could slip them on without fooling with laces - laces that probably hadn’t ever been untied - and he took pride in that. Brad can only imagine that it took Ray at least a year of practicing to get the trick down. Ray would line up his shoes every time he took them off so that when he went to leave again, he could do a ridiculous little hop and land himself in his shoes, strolling out the door without ever really breaking his stride.

Brad hadn’t minded much the first few times. It was a little bit impressive, all issues with hygiene aside. But it quickly began to wear on Brad’s nerves, especially since the picture frames in the hallway rattled against the wall every time Ray left the fucking house. Brad could’ve dealt with that, too, since he can appreciate another man's achievement. But mess with a man’s coffee and all bets are off.

On a weekend while they're off, Brad gets his chance after Ray lines his shoes up and goes upstairs to shower before they head out to meet the other guys. Brad sets his trap, combs his hair, and basks in the glow of satisfaction while he waits for Ray to come back down.

Ray grabs his wallet off the island, steps in front of the rug like a diver about to take the plunge, and hops. When he goes to follow through and take the step to the door, his feet stick to the rug, his arms flail out, and his face catches the corner of the table inside the door.

All the guys buy Brad's drinks that night while they rib Ray for the impressive shiner.

\---

Brad is running late. He’d scalded his throat with his coffee, barely had time to inhale his toast, forgot his keys in his bedroom and stubbed his toe on his way to fetch them, and had tangled up his boot laces so badly that he’d almost just cut them loose and duct taped them to his ankles.

Naturally, it's the morning Ray strikes.

Brad nearly loses his hand climbing into his Jeep. Ray duct taped all of Brad’s sharpest kitchen knives to his steering wheel.

He rides his bike to base and nearly freezes his balls off.

\---

Brad sets up a scavenger hunt complete with coordinates for Ray to retrieve all of his pants. Ray spends the day tripping over the legs of the jeans he’d had to steal from Brad to go out.

Ray cuts holes in all of Brad’s socks right before Brad has to spend a week away training. There’s nothing Brad hates more than his big toe rubbing against the top of his boot while he runs.

When Brad gets back, with very little toenail left, he changes the locks and dumps all of Ray’s shit in the garage after grilling himself a victory steak.

It bites him in the ass the next night when Ray breaks into the house, hides under Brad’s bed, and grabs his ankle as Brad’s climbing in. Brad will deny making any high-pitched noises all the way to his grave.

\---

Brad’s plotting Ray’s demise at the bar when half the platoon stampedes in, holding a struggling Ray between them.

“Ok, fuckers,” Poke starts, “time to end this shit.”

“We understand that sometimes it’s hard living with your best friend,” Nate says with a barely concealed grin. Ray makes gagging noises behind Nate's back.

“But there’s pranks and then there’s _pranks_ ,” Gunny adds.

“Your home should be your place of serenity,” Rudy says.

“And making each other miserable for revenge is immature,” Nate says, trying to look stern. Brad scowls at him.

“You’re both being babies about it,” Walt clarifies. "And we're sick of it."

“I didn’t make him piss himself!” Ray says indignantly.

“And I didn't deprive you of caffeine!” Brad answers.

“Thanks for proving my point,” Walt says with a satisfied nod of his head.

“While there have been serious transgressions on both sides,” Nate starts magnanimously, cutting off further argument.

“It’s time to call it even and move on, gents,” Gunny finishes.

“Ya’ll keep bitchin’ and moanin’ about your high school shenanigans and _we’re_ gonna be _committing the transgressions_ ,” Poke says with a crack of his knuckles.

“To ensure that you’re ready to let bygones be bygones, we’ve devised a little training exercise,” Nate says, crossing his arms. Ray stares at him in horror and Brad's face mimics his expression. Poke pulls out a set of handcuffs and dangles them in the air.

“You both got the weekend off, so time to make nice,” Poke says with a grin.

“Your first mission is to make it home safely,” Rudy adds.

“No fucking way,” Brad protests, but Nate’s got a firm grip on his arm before he can jerk away and Walt has Ray by the ear.

“You’ll survive two nights,” Gunny tells them, grinning as Poke clicks the cuffs shut over their wrists. “Somebody’ll be by to let you loose on Sunday.”

“Whoever draws the short straw,” Walt mutters.

The gang clusters around them and pushes them towards the exit. They’re unceremoniously shoved out the door.

“I’m gonna kill them when I get my hand back,” Ray mutters. He stands as far away from Brad as he can with their wrists bound together.

“Get in line,” Brad replies, jerking his arm so that Ray follows.

“You have to admit,” Ray says after several minutes of walking, “they really got us with this shit.”

Brad tries not to smile. “Yeah, they sure fucking did.”

It’s a long walk home.

\---

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to A for the initial help to rework this. Inspired by one of those AU posts on tumblr going around that had "roommate pranks" on it. It's ridiculous, I'm sorry.


End file.
